Galamsey operations under fire
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The Inter-Ministerial Task Force on illegal mining established by the President has taken the first fight to the people who have made it their duty to plunder our heritage.
The five-member task force, headed by the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Alhaji Inusah Fuseini, is mandated to ensure that the laws on small-scale mining are fully enforced and also seize equipment used by those who fail to comply with new directives on obtaining or renewing their licences.
When it started, many doubting Thomases gave the task force no chance of achieving its objectives.
The setting up of the task force was nearly mired in the usual duo politics of our time, as members of the two dominant parties accused each other of compounding the woes of our land.
Instead of joining forces to deal with the challenges of our time, the two parties take delight in the blame game.
We are happy that in spite of the initial attempt to politicise the activities of the task force, its members have stayed focused on the assignment given them by the President.
Interestingly, the task force has made arrests across the country and this move has put fear into illegal foreign miners and their local collaborators.
Reports have it that a district chief executive in the Central Region has been arrested for conniving with the illegal miners, although he has come out to deny the purported arrest.
That the task force has no respect for anybody, no matter his or her status, demonstrates the fact that it is clothed with enough power to deal with deviants bent on destroying our forests and water bodies.
Until that decision was taken by the government to deal with the menace of illegal mining, it was as if the ‘galamseyers’ were untouchables in our society.
It was frightening that foreigners had come to our land to call the bluff of our hospitality and engage in actions to disturb the peace and stability of the country.
They had the courage to terrorise our people with sophisticated weapons to intimidate the people to give way for their nefarious actions.
Whatever the modest nature of the gains chalked up by the task force so far, the Daily Graphic commends the members for their determination to succeed where other agencies had failed to bring law and order into the mining sector.
We urge them not to make their activities a nine-day wonder because of our experiences with other activities in the past.
Similar initiatives started with vim and enthusiasm, only to fizzle out with time to reflect the local saying, ‘Ehuru a, ebedwo’, literally meaning the exercise would be a nine-day wonder.
The Daily Graphic thinks this project to flush out illegal miners to save our vegetation and water bodies from plunder must be supported by all.
We, therefore, call on Ghanaians from all walks of life to assist the task force to achieve the mandate imposed on it by the President, otherwise one day we shall wake up to find our heritage totally destroyed.
Already, the activities of the task force are suffocating the illegal miners, particularly the foreigners, who are voluntarily asking the Ghana Immigration Service to assist them to go back home because they do not want to be arrested.
We hope this is not a ploy by those illegal miners to get the task force to become complacent and slow down efforts to flush out all of them from the country.
The Daily Graphic salutes the task force for a good work done so far, but they must keep their eyes on the ball to safeguard our natural resources for future generations.
